This is not a real tax cut

The compromised payroll tax cut sounds good on paper, but this wasn't really a tax cut.

Real tax cuts are offset by lower government spending, fewer bureaucrats and smaller government — and result in economic growth as capital is redirected into investment. This so-called "tax cut" for pizza money is nothing but a fresh raid on Social Security.

The effect will be yet another $200 billion drain on the trust fund, which is nothing but an accounting fiction given the bad shape it's in. The 12.4 percent payroll tax from today's workers — which will now be lowered for two months to 8.4 percent — goes into the Social Security pot and, like a Ponzi scheme, gets paid out to today's retirees until the money runs out.

But Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, aren't thinking about that. They're both thinking about the next election.